Blog Archives

About 6 years ago, I was on a girl’s weekend with some of my female family members. We spent a weekend at my cousin’s vacation home on an exclusive island off the coast of North Carolina (lucky her). On that weekend, we took a boating trip (because, of course, what would a vacation home on an exclusive island be without a boat?), and many of the girls wanted to try their hand at tubing off the back. There was an enormous tube that could easily hold 2 at a time, and it was attached to the back of the boat with a long rope. Once the boat was in full gear, it was not unlike an amusement park ride… except that you are not harnessed in.

Consequently, I was one of the least interested in taking this ride.

On the other hand, I am very susceptible to goading, and I received plenty of it from my cousins. So I watched as, one by one, the girls jumped onto the tube, the boat would accelerate, and, like one of those bull rides in a honky-tonk bar, it would be a matter of seconds before they would go flying off the tube into the water. Exhilarating for them (I assume, since they would jump right back onto the tube to try again), more and more anxiety-producing for me. Finally, it was my turn, as I could take the nagging no longer, and I got myself situated. I asked one of the veterans, “any advice?” and she said, “hang on, and don’t let go, no matter what.”

Sounds ridiculous, but those words were like a mantra as the boat sped up. And hang on I did, I was the first and only to not fall off the tube for an entire ride. To this day I remember the feeling: arms aching, wind and water stinging my face, boat motor roaring through my ears, waves bouncing the tube, and me, like a popcorn kernel in the microwave bag, but I knew if I just “hung on, no matter what,” I would get to the other side.

Sometimes, when I think of parenting my children during this time of their lives (13 and 11), I am reminded of the feeling I had on that tube. There is a barrage of issues, both large and small, when it comes to raising children. It’s not a question of whether or not there will be waves, it’s a question of how often they hit, and how big the waves will be.

In recovery, it is often said that sometimes the only thing you can do in a given day is not drink, and that is a huge accomplishment. I often feel the same way about parenting: sometimes the best thing I can say about my job as a mother is that both kids have made it through the day intact, that they are in one piece and under the same roof as me when we go to bed. And I feel as grateful for that as I do for not taking a drink that day.

I wrote last week of the struggles I am having with my daughter and her varsity basketball team. This struggle, I assume, will continue for the rest of the season, and the best thing I can say about it is that it is a learning experience for both my daughter and me, and an opportunity to have a dialogue about her feelings.

Yesterday I faced an issue with my son: a problem with a fellow student, who lied to school authorities to keep himself out of trouble. Now my son is being judged for doing something he did not do. It would not be worth the time it would take to write out all of the nuances of this story, but where it becomes an issue for me is that at the end of it, my son was made to apologize for something he did not do, and the boy in question had no repercussions whatsoever. In other words, they believed the troublemaker, and blamed the victim.

So here I sit, The Least Confrontational Person in the World, and now I have to take on the Principal of my son’s school.

Something tells me that this tube ride is going to take a bit longer than the one I described at the beginning of this post. God willing, I will have the same feeling of excitement and accomplishment at the end.

As I was running this issue around in my mind in the car this morning, Katy Perry’sRoar came on the radio. Which, of course, is not a miracle by itself, since that song comes on every 3 minutes. But the opening words caught my attention, I had never listened to more than the chorus before:

I used to bite my tongue and hold my breathScared to rock the boat and make a messSo I sat quietly, agreed politelyI guess that I forgot I had a choiceI let you push me past the breaking pointI stood for nothing, so I fell for everything